Official Blog of Author MICHAEL THOMAS BARRY.
A blog which discusses varied topics that are related to the authors many books. Michael is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books.
Questions or comments can be sent to ocauthor6434@gmail.com

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Alabama Bomb Blast Kills 4 at Baptist Church - 1963

On this date in 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday
morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama,
killing four young girls.

With its large African-American congregation, the 16th
Street Baptist Church served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders like
Martin Luther King, Jr., who once called Birmingham a "symbol of hardcore
resistance to integration." Alabama's governor, George Wallace, made
preserving racial segregation one of the central goals of his administration,
and Birmingham had one of the most violent and lawless chapters of the Ku Klux
Klan. The church bombing was the third in Birmingham in 11 days after a federal
order came down to integrate Alabama's school system. Fifteen sticks of
dynamite were planted in the church basement, underneath what turned out to be
the girls' restroom. The bomb detonated at 10:19 a.m., killing Cynthia Wesley,
Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins--all 14 years old--and 11-year-old
Denise McNair. Immediately after the blast, church members wandered dazed and bloodied,
covered with white powder and broken stained glass, before starting to dig in
the rubble to search for survivors. More than 20 other members of the
congregation were injured in the blast.

When thousands of angry black protesters assembled at the
crime scene, Wallace sent hundreds of police and state troopers to the area to
break up the crowd. Two young black men were killed that night, one by police
and another by racist thugs. Meanwhile, public outrage over the bombing
continued to grow, drawing international attention to Birmingham. At a funeral
for three of the girls (one's family preferred a separate, private service),
King addressed more than 8,000 mourners. A well-known Klan member, Robert
Chambliss, was charged with murder and with buying 122 sticks of dynamite. In
October 1963, Chambliss was cleared of the murder charge and received a
six-month jail sentence and a $100 fine for the dynamite. Although a subsequent
FBI investigation identified three other men--Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Cash and
Thomas E. Blanton, Jr.--as having helped Chambliss commit the crime, it was
later revealed that FBI chairman J. Edgar Hoover blocked their prosecution and
shut down the investigation without filing charges in 1968. After Alabama
Attorney General Bill Baxley reopened the case, Chambliss was convicted in 1977
and sentenced to life in prison. Efforts to prosecute the other three men
believed responsible for the bombing continued for decades. Though Cash died in
1994, Cherry and Blanton were arrested and charged with four counts of murder
in 2000. Blanton was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Cherry's trial
was delayed after judges ruled he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. This
decision was later reversed. On May 22, 2002, Cherry was convicted and
sentenced to life, bringing a long-awaited victory to the friends and families
of the four young victims.